Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) has directed his administration to purge the state’s voting rolls of thousands of registered voters prior to the November election. But his list, which purports to include only “non-citizens,” targets mostly Democrats and Hispanics and, as ThinkProgress has documented, may disenfranchise hundreds of citizens who are eligible to vote.

The story of a sitting governor of a state with a history of presidential election shenanigans knowingly purging his own, eligible constituents from the voter rolls is the definition of major news, and yet remarkably, in the first five months of the year, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today have published a total of zero articles about Scott’s actions. The New York Times did slightly better, printing one story on page 16 of the Friday, May 18th edition. The article ran under the credulous headline: “Florida Steps Up Effort Against Illegal Voters.”

Florida’s local newspapers, led by The Miami Herald, have been far more diligent in reporting the governor’s effort to disenfranchise eligible voters. While it may be easy to dismiss this as local fare, the implications of Scott’s purge could potentially swing the presidential election come November. Remember, months before anyone had ever heard of hanging chads, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (R) conducted a similar cleansing of the voter rolls in 2000, which resulted in thousands of eligible voters being knocked off the rolls in time for the infamous Gore v. Bush election.

Bill Internicola is a 91-year-old, Brooklyn-born, World War II veteran. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and received the Bronze Star for bravery. He’s voted in Florida for 14 years and never had a problem.

Three weeks ago, Bill received a letter from Broward County Florida stating “[Y]ou are not a U.S. Citizen” and therefore, ineligible to vote. He was given the option of requesting “a hearing with the Supervisor of Elections, for the purpose of providing proof that you are a United States citizens” or forfeit his right to vote.

This decorated World War II veteran is just one of hundreds of fully eligible U.S. citizens being targeted by Governor Scott’s massive voter purge just prior to this year’s election, according to data obtained from Florida election officials by ThinkProgress. The purge list, according to an analysis by the Miami Herald, targets mostly Democrats and Hispanics.

The Advancement Project, a voting rights group in Florida, has asked the Justice Department to investigate, alleging that Scott’s voter purge violates federal law.

Bill appeared at a press conference this morning with Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL), who has called on Scott to “immediately suspend” the voter purge.

During a Republican primary debate last week, Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin told voters that he may support eliminating the direct election of Senators — the right guaranteed by the 17th Amendment:

This is a very interesting question, and I haven’t jumped up and down and taken a firm position on it. I think in general, my, I have a very serious concern about erosion of states rights. Very serious concern of that, and this, reversing this decision might pull that balance back. I am, as I’ve mentioned, a strong conservative, I don’t think the federal government should be doing a whole lot of things that it’s doing and it well may be that a repeal of the 17th Amendment might tend to pull that back but I haven’t written any thesis on it or anything like that.

Watch it:

A repeal of the 17th Amendment would make America fundamentally less democratic, and calling for the repeal shows a distrust of the American people. Moreover, the Amendment wasn’t enacted as some sort of federal power grab, as Akin suggests. Rather the call for the Amendment was driven largely by state legislatures and only one state, Utah, voted against it.

The 17th Amendment was adopted in no small part because state legislatures were caught selling seats or were unable to fill them because of electoral deadlocks. And in case Akin doesn’t think corruption or incompetence would be a problem for today’s state lawmakers, he need only look at Rod Blagojevich or the failures of a variety of state legislatures to disabuse himself of that notion. Reformers who called for the 17th Amendment believed that it would clean up corruption and give power to the people. Akin apparently believes that power may be safer in the hands of state governments than the people.

Akin isn’t the only Republican candidate who has called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Other major Republicans have also come out against the 17th Amendment, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and Justice Antonin Scalia.

Nevertheless, Akin’s main Republican rivals distanced themselves from him on the 17th Amendment. State Treasurer Sarah Steelman said she is favor of direct election of senators and implied that she worries about the kind of interests that would have influence if the state legislature chose Senators. Similarly, businessman John Brunner is also in favor of direct election of senators and said he is “highly sympathetic to the whole concept of the 17th Amendment, and doing everything we can to bring the power back to the people.”

–Alex Brown

On June 6, Ohio is scheduled to execute Abdul Awkal for the murder of his estranged wife and brother-in-law unless Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) grants a pending clemency petition, or a court steps in with a last minute order. Here are the facts about the mental health of the man set to be executed next Wednesday:

• Survived a Civil War: In 1975, when Abdul was sixteen years old, a civil war erupted in his home country of Lebanon. Abdul lived through this war for eight years before he was able to escape to Michigan to live with family members. Although Abdul never sought treatment during his first months in the United States and thus was not diagnosed with a mental illness until sometime later, he said that he spent his first four months in America sitting on his brother’s couch — behavior an Ohio clemency board said was “as if he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
• History of Mental Breakdowns: Abdul eventually found work as a gas station attendant. About a year after he arrived in the United States, however, he was wrongfully accused of stealing from his employer. According to the Ohio Supreme Court, he then suffered a mental breakdown. Abdul “became hysterical, cursing and breaking things, vomited and then collapsed.” He was taken to a Detroit hospital in a straitjacket and later released with instructions (that he disregarded) to seek psychiatric treatment. Some time later, Abdul suffered at least one more mental breakdown as his marriage to the woman he eventually killed became increasingly dysfunctional. A mental hospital again told him to seek psychiatric care, but he did not follow up because he says he could not afford treatment.

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